The Giants of Doddridge County: Burials of a Vanished Race

In the summer of 1930, a series of newspaper articles appeared describing a most sensational discovery: a race of gigantic beings unearthed from two burial mounds in Doddridge County, West Virginia.

According to the Clarksburg Daily Exponent for June 15, 1930, in an article entitled Two Prehistoric Indian Mounds Found Near Morgansville ( by Bruce Horton), the mounds were located on the farm of Benjamin Zahn in Morgansville, 12 miles (19 kilometers) west of Salem. The article mentions that Professor Ernest Sutton of Salem University carried out excavations.

Burials of a Vanished Race

The article makes remarkable claims regarding the “now vanished race” found buried in the mounds:

“The particular tribe or race which inhabited this section of the state is believed to have been composed of individuals ranging from seven to nine feet in height…”

Of the two mounds, the Exponent article notes that one, being “six feet in height and nearly fifteen feet in diameter” (1.8 meters high and 4.5 meters diameter) contained a type of megalithic chamber “shaped from large, flat rocks”, which was “carefully and tightly packed with clay”. Within the chamber was one sitting burial, considered to be a chief.

The Exponent explains that the second mound was “ten feet high and about sixty feet in diameter” (three meters high and 18 meters diameter), featuring three burials, one of which was “a man of height, strength and power, measuring seven feet, six inches tall” (228.6 cm tall), buried near the center of the mound and “carefully covered by flat stones”. Another skeleton from the same mound is described as being “hermetically sealed in a case of clay”.